Company News Ken Levine shuts down Irrational Games

[Duraframe300]

[
There's so few devs on the east coast they will have to relocate.

They can join the Fallout 4 team in Maryland.

Even they don't have space for 100+ people.

Seriously this is fucked.

 

[Chateaubryan]

Wow, I can't wait for the Kickstarter campaign he will soon be launching to fund the first game of his incredibly risky small startup.

 

[Bubbles]

Major layoffs happen all the time for stupid reasons. You don't like it, vote Communist.

 

[Chateaubryan]

Major layoffs happen all the time for stupid reasons. You don't like it, vote Communist.

Yeah, corporate bullshit is acceptable as long as it doesn't concerns RPG combat systems.

 

[Azazel]

Hey this is nice, maybe Warhorse can scoop up some of the laid off devs, if they are willing to relocate. They will be staffing up now.

Yes, because the exact people I want building the no-fantasy high-realism 14th century Poland simulator are the chucklefucked hacks at Irrational.

 

[Severian Silk]

Maybe with all the LEGO he will design a roguelike that doesn't suck so much?

 

[pakoito]

Hey this is nice, maybe Warhorse can scoop up some of the laid off devs, if they are willing to relocate. They will be staffing up now.

Yes, because the exact people I want building the no-fantasy high-realism 14th century Poland simulator are the chucklefucked hacks at Irrational.

You know the difference between an engineer and a designer, right? You want the AAA guys building your budget games because they'll squeeze every inch of performance.

 

[evdk]

Hey this is nice, maybe Warhorse can scoop up some of the laid off devs, if they are willing to relocate. They will be staffing up now.

Yes, because the exact people I want building the no-fantasy high-realism 14th century Poland simulator are the chucklefucked hacks at Irrational.

 

[Siel]

It begins.

 

[evdk]

It begins.

Pringles are pushing out Doritos.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Ok, what does he mean by "narrative-driven games for the core gamer that are highly replayable"? Am I reading replayable Mass Effect/Bioware style games?

It actually sounds like it could be cool, except I know he's a pretentious game developer.

 

[Siel]

I like things that make me feel stupid

Ken Levine, creator of the Bioshock series

 

[Gregz]

tl;dr "Ken Levine is tired of making AAA games. You're all fired." Still, who knows, maybe something interesting will come out of this.

This is some of the best news I've heard in a while, everything he's saying smacks of incline. He hints that he's tired of making shit, and that the conventional method of making games (AAA studios/budgets) is FLAWED. Sounds like all upside to me, and hopefully it sends a message to other designers to get out of their crushing 100 hour/week AAA wage slavery, and get back to making quality fucking games through the many new unconventional channels that are opening up.

 

[Bubbles]

Yes, Ken Levine will change gaming forever.

 

[Roguey]

People losing their jobs because of the whim of a white-person-killing-sim-maker is funny?

Also System Shock 2 isn't a RPG, even Avellone says so.

 

[evdk]

This has been the hardest brofist in my life.

 

[Angelo85]

To make narrative-driven games for the core gamer that are highly replayable.

That description sounds a little like

 

[Azazel]

You know the difference between an engineer and a designer, right? You want the AAA guys building your budget games because they'll squeeze every inch of performance.

BI was built on Unreal, the most licensed middleware engine ever, and still had horrific performance. I wouldn't hire the people at Irrational to code a urinal flushing controller let alone a game.

 

[set]

Narrative driven crap, ugh.

Ken Levine is a hack, his narratives suck.

Good move though, AAA games are on the downfall. Smart to take the money and run.

Could this be the beginning of the second great video game crash? I wonder what the turning point will be, if not something like this.

 

[Average Manatee]

Major layoffs happen all the time for stupid reasons. You don't like it, vote Communist.

This isn't even a reason. It's like if the execs at BP said "I'm tired of managing this oil stuff, lets start a bake shop" and promptly fired 99% of their employees. Assuming Irrational is profitable there's no good reason not to simply hire someone else to do the job making AAA-derp bioshocks while Ken Levine goes off and does whatever he likes.

 

[set]

They could have just sold everything but the IPs to Naughty Dog. Bioshock team plus Naughy Dog team would make the most cinematic shooter emotional story driven drivel ever and it would print pancakes.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

I wonder if Tim Schafer's recent success with noted kickstarter scam Broken Age will have factored into Levine's decision making here. I imagine he'd do just as well kickstarting a project for his own captive audience.

 

[Infinitron]

Major layoffs happen all the time for stupid reasons. You don't like it, vote Communist.

This isn't even a reason. It's like if the execs at BP said "I'm tired of managing this oil stuff, lets start a bake shop" and promptly fired 99% of their employees. Assuming Irrational is profitable there's no good reason not to simply hire someone else to do the job making AAA-derp bioshocks while Ken Levine goes off and does whatever he likes.

This event can in fact be compared to things that have already happened in the gaming industry:

1) Bungie's departure from Microsoft and their abandonment of the Halo IP, because they wanted to move on and their contract with Microsoft allowed it.
2) The ousting of the Infinity Ward founders and the departure of much of their staff, driven in part by the fact that they were tired of being forced to rehash Call of Duty.

Both of these events aren't exactly the same as what happened to Irrational, but there are enough similarities that we can say that it's not entirely out of the question that something like this could happen.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Who knew it was that easy, I hope Bethesda follows suit.

 

[undecaf]

Levine wanting out of AAA shit... just watch as his next game will be, like a fresh start with a small team, a "narrative driven" horror FPS called Nanoshock that takes place in the colon of a beached manatee.

I'm doubting he's up to anything actually interesting with this stunt. Meh, time will tell... Props on detaching from the triple A stuff, though.